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PITCAIRNE, ARCHIBALD (1652-1713)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 660 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PITCAIRNE, See also:ARCHIBALD (1652-1713) , Scottish physician, was See also:born at See also:Edinburgh on the 25th of See also:December 1652. After obtaining some classical See also:education at the school of See also:Dalkeith, Pitcairne entered Edinburgh University in 1668, and took his degree of M.A. in 1671. Having been sent to See also:France for the benefit of his See also:health, he was induced at See also:Paris to begin the study of See also:medicine, and after courses at Edinburgh and Paris he obtained in 168o the degree of M.D. at Rheims. He began practice at Edinburgh, and in a See also:short See also:time acquired so See also:great a reputation that in 1692 he was appointed See also:professor of medicine at See also:Leiden. Among his pupils were See also:Richard See also:Mead and H. See also:Boerhaave, and both of them attributed much of their skill to what they had learned from Pitcairne. In 1693 Pitcairne returned to See also:Scotland to marry a daughter of See also:Sir Archibald See also:Stevenson, an eminent physician in Edinburgh. The See also:family objected to her going abroad, so he did not return to Leiden, but settled once more in Edinburgh. He See also:rose to be the first physician in Scotland, and was frequently called into consultation both in See also:England and See also:Holland. Soon after his return to Edinburgh, feeling the great want of the means of anatomical study, he importuned the See also:town See also:council to permit himself and certain of his medical See also:friends to treat without See also:fee the sick paupers in " See also:Paul's See also:Work," on See also:condition of being allowed to dissect such of the bodies as were unclaimed by their relatives, and therefore had to be buried at the town's expense. Strangely enough this proposal was strongly opposed by the See also:chief surgeons of the See also:place, but ultimately the town council had the See also:good sense to comply with Pitcairne's See also:request, and in this way he may be said to have the See also:credit of laying the See also:foundation of the great Edinburgh school of medicine. Pitcairne's medical opinions are chiefly contained in a See also:volume of Dissertationes medicae which he published in 1701 (2nd ed.

1713). In these he discusses the application of See also:

geometry to physic, the circulation of the See also:blood in the smaller vessels, the difference in the quantity of the blood contained in the lungs of animals in the womb and of the same animals after See also:birth, the motions by which See also:food becomes See also:fit to See also:supply the blood, the question as to inventors in medicine (in which he repels the See also:idea of certain medical discoveries of See also:modern times having beenknown to the ancients, especially vindicating for See also:Harvey the See also:discovery of the circulation of the blood, and refuting the view that it was known to See also:Hippocrates), the cure of fevers by evacuating medicines, and the effects of acids and alkalis in medicine. Pitcairne was a good classical See also:scholar, and wrote Latin verses, occasionally with something more than See also:mere imitative cleverness and skill. He was supposed to be the author of a See also:comedy, The See also:Assembly, or Scotch See also:Reformation, and of a satirical poem See also:Babel, containing witty sketches of prominent Presbyterian divines of the time, whom, as a loudly avowed Jacobite, he strongly disliked. He was prone to irreverent and See also:ribald jests, and thus gained the reputation of being an unbeliever and an atheist, though he was a professed deist. The stories about his over-See also:indulgence in drink are probably exaggerated. He was repeatedly involved in violent quarrels with his medical brethren and others, and once or twice got into scrapes with the See also:government on See also:account of his indiscreet See also:political utterances. Among his friends, however, he was evidently well liked, and he is known to have acted with great kindness and generosity to deserving men who needed his help. See also:Thomas See also:Ruddiman, the Scottish scholar, for example, was rescued from a See also:life of obscurity by his encouragement and assistance, and by no one was his memory more gratefully cherished. Mead, too, appears never to have forgotten what he owed to his old teacher at Leiden. A son of Pitcairne's had gone out in the See also:rebellion of 1715, and, having been condemned to See also:death, was saved by the See also:earnest interposition of Mead with Sir See also:Robert See also:Walpole. He pleaded, very artfully, that if Walpole's health had been bettered by his skill, or if members of the royal family were preserved by his care, it was owing to the instruction he had received from Dr Pitcairne.

Pitcairne died in Edinburgh on the 20th of See also:

October 1713. He had been a great See also:collector of books, and his library, which is said to have been of considerable value, was, through the See also:influence of Ruddiman, disposed of to See also:Peter the Great of See also:Russia.

End of Article: PITCAIRNE, ARCHIBALD (1652-1713)

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